Exchange Server 2013 supports online mailbox moves. To
complete an upgrade, balance the server load, manage drive space, or
relocate mailboxes, you can move mailboxes from one server or database
to another server or database. The process you use to move mailboxes
depends on where the mailbox or mail data is stored:
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When you want to work with mail data stored on a user’s computer, you can use the import or export process to move mail data.
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When a user’s mailbox is stored on an on-premises Exchange server
and you want to move the mailbox to a database on the same server or
another server in the same forest, you can use an online mailbox move
or batch migration to move the mailbox.
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When a user’s mailbox is stored on an on-premises Exchange server in
one Active Directory forest and you want to move the mailbox to an
on-premises Exchange server in another forest, you can use a
cross-forest move to move the mailbox.
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When
a user’s mailbox is stored on-premises and you want to move the mailbox
to Exchange Online or vice versa, you can use a remote move to move the
mailbox.
Importing and exporting mail data
When Microsoft Outlook uses Exchange Server, a user’s mail data can be delivered in one of two ways:
With server mailboxes, messages are delivered to mailboxes on the
Exchange server and users can view or receive new mail only when they
are connected to Exchange. A local copy of the user’s mail data is
stored in an .ost file on her computer.
Personal folders are alternatives to server mailboxes. Personal
folders are stored in a .pst file on the user’s computer. With personal
folders, you can specify that mail should be delivered to the user’s
inbox and stored on the server or that mail should be delivered only to
the user’s inbox. Users have personal folders when Outlook is
configured to use Internet email or other email servers. Users might
also have personal folders if the auto-archive feature is used to
archive messages.
When you are working with on-premises Exchange, you can:
Important
You must have the Mailbox Import Export role to be able to import or
export mailbox data. Because this role isn’t assigned to any role
group, you must be explicitly assigned this role.
The import and export processes are asynchronous. They are queued
and processed independently of Exchange Management Shell. The related
commands are shown in the following list:
Mailbox
imports and exports are initiated with Mailbox Import and Mailbox
Export requests, respectively. These requests are sent to the Microsoft
Exchange Mailbox Replication Service (MRS) running on a Client Access
server in the source forest. The MRS queues the request for processing,
handling all requests on a first-in, first-out basis. When a request is
at the top of the queue, the replication service begins importing or
exporting mail data.
Before you can import or export data, you need to create a shared
network folder that is accessible to your Exchange servers, and the
Exchange Trusted Subsystem group must have read/write access to this
share.
You use New-MailboxImportRequest to import data from a .pst file to
a mailbox or personal archive. Keep in mind you can’t import data to a
user account that doesn’t have a mailbox and that the destination
mailbox must be already available. The import process will not create a
mailbox. By default, all mail folders are imported. However, you can
specifically include or exclude folders. You also can import mail data
to only the user’s personal archive.
You use New-MailboxExportRequest to export mailbox data to
a .pst file. The command allows you to export one or more mailboxes,
with each mailbox export handling a separate request. When exporting
mail data, you can specify folders to include or exclude and export
mail data from the user’s archive. You also can filter the messages so
only messages that match your content filter are exported.
